Guilded Head Bookends

This is a sponsored post on behalf of FloraCraft®. As always, all project ideas and opinions are my own.

I have been wanting to try my hand at guilding for a while now (remember my gold leaf round up several weeks ago?) so when FloraCraft® sent me a box full of their Foam Heads, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to try out the technique! I mean, what could be more fun than a life-sized gold head? Not much, right?

The FloraCraft® Foam Heads are available in both male and female and pretty much life-sized. They are great for displaying hats and whatnot. But I had a different direction I wanted to take…

To cut the heads in half to create the bookends, I began by using a piece of twine to lay a template down the center of the head. I then traced this line with a pen. Using a foam craft knife, I cut the head in half. I’m not going to lie, it was messy (cover your work surface!) and took some serious cutting. But it worked! In about 20 minutes I had my head in halves.

Once halved, I used Mod Podge to apply a sheet of silver tissue paper over one side of the head. Trim the paper in the back so that ~1 inch of the paper will fold over the back of the head. If this layer looks messy or has holes, don’t fret! Using the scraps of paper you trimmed off, cut off squares of paper, crumble it up to wrinkle the paper then unfold it. Mod Podge the squares of paper over the first layer on the head. It will give a completely different look than the first layer of paper.

Completely cover each half of the head with the 2nd layer of crumpled tissue paper.

Then it is on to the guilding! I used a gold leaf kit that came with sheets of gold leaf and an adhesive pen. Basically, you draw the design then lay the gold leaf on it. Very simple and very easy to customize. For one head I opted to draw a woman’s face and for the other a trendy geometric design. I absolutely love how both turned out!

Foam isn’t going to hold up any books on it’s own so we need to add some support to the bookends. I used 12″x6″x 1/4″ plywood for the vertical side and 3″x6″x1/4″ plywood for the base. I painted each piece of wood blue then glued all of the pieces together.

Doesn’t this lady look lovely holding up these old books?

And I’m pretty much infatuated with this guilded geometric version of the bookend. It looks like a piece of art!

What would you make with one of the FloraCraft® Foam Heads? I also used them as models for our latest Halloween costumes. My Yoda hat and Darth Maul mask fit on perfectly and were way easier to photograph than a squirmy toddler!

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